Helping Hands
by Gillian Middleton
Summary: Dr Stephen Maturn perceives that Jack Aubrey has a problem. He lends a helping hand.


**Helping Hands**

by gillianinoz

Jack pawed gloomily at his charts, only succeeding in knocking them onto the floor of his cabin, taking his glass of wine with it.

"Damnation!" he swore, bending and trying to gather them up before the claret could stain them. His head swam and he grabbed at the table, cursing yet again as his bandaged hand connected with the wooden corner.

"What's all this then?" Stephen said briskly, entering the cabin and closing the door firmly behind him. "Taking the Lord's name in vain, and on the Sabbath too. Shame on you Captain Aubrey."

"Help me up, Stephen, there's a good fellow," Jack said, accepting the arm the doctor had already wrapped around his waist. "My head's all aswim."

"Well, and what do you expect," Stephen said, his voice scolding but his hands gentle as he led Jack to his padded chair by the cabin's windows. "You're covered with burns from head to foot, and it's only by the grace of the God you so profane that your clothes didn't catch alight and set you aflame."

"I can take the small burns," Jack said, sighing as he sat back into his comfortable chair, bolstered by his steward to ease the pressure on his many tiny wounds. "It's not the first time I've had powder burns after all. But my hands, Stephen, my damn hands."

"Patience, joy," Stephen said, taking the bandaged hands in his own and inspecting the tight bindings. "Tomorrow we will leave the wrappings off and begin a light exercise of the joints. The muscles are undamaged, and the new, healthy skin will only need stretching."

"A fellow doesn't appreciate his hands until he can't use them," Jack said as Stephen started to undo the buttons on his shirt. "Although Hen Dundas and I once spent a day with one hand bound close to our bodies, in a sling-like affair, just to see what it would be like was we ever to lose a limb."

"Did you indeed?" Stephen said idly, pulling Jack's shirt carefully open and reaching for his pot of salve. "And when did you conduct this interesting experiment?"

"Oh, we was just squeakers on the _Belleisle_, landed on Palmyra Island to reprovision. In truth we only lasted a few hours of the game, there was trees to climb and clear water to swim in after all." He sighed for those long ago days of his youth, for heart-breaking blue skies and the golden curve of powdery sand ringed by palm trees. "Lieutenant Briggs, he was later Captain of the _Pelorus_, he saw us and called us morbid little scrubs. Cuffed us alongside the head, but it was all in good fun."

"Sure, and I suppose it's not dissimilar to the lion cub, playing at being a predator even though it's still suckling at its mother teat. Or the common domesticated dog, practicing its future hunting art against the dangled piece of string. Embryonic sailing men, such a,s yourselves playing at future battles - and their all too common consequences."

Stephen exhausted the small burns on Jack's chest and side and undid his breeches, carefully tugging them down his thighs. Fortunately the exploding powder shell had showered the majority of its smouldering sparks above Jack's waist, and there were only a few reddened blisters on his belly, just one of them burst and leaking clear fluid. Stephen carefully rubbed in the soothing salve, a concoction of his own experiment, containing aloe and burdock root. The sweet smelling ointment went on easily, Jack's smooth paunch, skin golden-tanned, rippling under his hands. Stephen's brow rose as Jack's member responded swiftly to the palpating touch and rose heartily.

"Lord," Jack sighed, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. He wasn't as mortified as he might have been with another man, even another doctor. He and Stephen had shared close quarters for years after all, they had seen each other in all the states of being natural to a man, morning excitement included. "I'm sorry, Stephen."

"Nonsense," Stephen said, rising and wiping his hands on a rag from his pocket. "A completely natural reaction, think nothing of it. I'd be more worried if you didn't achieve your Priapic state with such a particular touch, and you so long at sea. But it occurs to me, Jack, that I have been remiss in my duties."

Another bottle appeared from Stephen's pocket, the lid was unstoppered and Jack's nostrils twitched at the scent of sweet almond oil.

"I've tended your needs these last few days, seen to your dress and your more intimate urges, and yet it only now occurs to me that this, even more intimate need has been neglected."

Jack sighed again as Stephen's oil-slicked hand slid gently over his belly, the touch firm and still oddly impersonal. When the clever fingers reached the rough, golden mat of Jack's pubic hair however, he lifted his head and stared at Stephen in surprise.

"If you permit?" Stephen offered, and Jack wasn't even sure what he would have said, if, at that moment Stephen hadn't slid his hand those vital few inches and grasped his rampant prick firmly. After that he could only gurgle an assent and close his eyes as Stephen gently jerked him, his other hand reaching down and cupping Jack's balls in a move that had him arching off the chair.

Sparks brighter than the powder that had put him in this position burst behind Jack's eyes, his massive chest heaved and his bandaged hands scrabbled fruitlessly at the cushions as Stephen steadily worked him. Hands now pumped hard then eased back, a rough palm slid over the weeping head while those clever clever fingers tugged and fondled oh-so gently at his balls.

To have hands on him thus, another's hands, _Stephen's_ hands, was magic, was bliss, was a rising crescendo of pleasure in Jack's ears, and finally, inevitably it ended. Fevered excitement poured out of him in jerking spasms, leaving him wrung dry and limp, breath still sawing, but in pleasured, ragged sighs now, rather than panting moans.

Eyes still closed, Jack felt gentle hands pat him dry, draw his breeches back up, pull his shirt closed.

"Stephen?" he mumbled, and those beloved hands were back, stroking his hair and cupping his flushed cheek.

"Easy, my dear," Stephen murmured. "Sleep easy, no tonic in my medicine chest could form a better restorative than sleep's soothing embrace."

Jack obeyed his order.

888

Jack didn't stir in the night, bells rung, shifts changed, footsteps rang overhead and the duties of the day began. Only the smell of coffee roused him and he opened his eyes at last to the sight of Stephen tiptoeing ineptly about the cabin, laying out the pot and two cups.

"Good morning, Stephen," Jack said, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes with the back of his bandaged hand. "Lord, I slept! It would have taken a full broadside from a ship of the line to wake me last night." He stood, stretched, and made his way to the seat-of-ease behind the discreet door, Stephen following him and tending swiftly and impersonally to his needs.

"I must admit," Stephen said, sitting back at the table and sipping his coffee after a quick sluice of his hands. "I expected a little awkwardness this morning after my froward behaviour last night."

"Awkward?" Jack said around a mouthful of his own coffee. "Ahh, I needed that. Killick! Killick there! Breakfast!"

"Which it is on its way," Killick called back grumpily.

"I did rather take matters into my own hands, as it were," Stephen said, and Jack stared at him for a moment and then sputtered around his drink, face reddening as he chuckled loudly.

"In your own hands!" he repeated, then stifled his mirth as Killick opened the door and carried in their breakfast tray. When the muttering steward was gone, Jack let Stephen serve out his portion and then lifted his fork and stabbed at his bacon. "The only awkwardness here, Stephen, is from these damnable bandages. You said I might have these wrappings off today?"

"After breakfast I'll take a look at them," Stephen promised. "But, Jack, you surprise me. I am amazed, befuddled, confused. We've had many discussions on the so-called sins of pederasty and buggery over the years, so I know that you're not some hard-horse, blue-light captain ready to condemn a man for the choice of concupiscence. But your easy attitude takes me aback."

"Pederasty?" Jack repeated, hand stilling, laden fork wobbling precariously. ""Oh, Stephen, what a fellow you are. That wasn't pederasty, nothing like it."

"Was it not, then?"

Jack snorted. "Of course it wasn't, upon my word. Pederasty, imagine!"

"I cannot," Stephen murmured, applying himself to his eggs. "But if it wasn't pederasty, or buggery for that matter, what was it? And before you name it a medical procedure, I must tell you that no such practice ever appeared in a medical text to my knowledge, nor was it any sort of prescription advised at the Sorbonne."

"I never thought it was," Jack said. "How you do like to complicate things, Stephen. It was simple case of a fellow helping another fellow out. Happens all the time in the service."

"Does it forsooth?"

"Of course it does," Jack said, shaking his head in exasperation. "But it don't go to prate about it, d'you see? It's a private matter between mess mates or tie mates and so forth. _Magna res est vocis et silentii temperamentum._"

"Ah, I see." Stephen cogitated for a while as he chewed his bacon.

Jack studied him with fondness, then leaned over conspiratorially. "And while we're on the subject," he said quietly. "There's the small matter of reciprocation."

"Reciprocation?"

"A return," Jack clarified. "A giving back and forth."

"I know what the word means, for all love," Stephen said testily. "It is the context that escapes. "Reciprocation?" Then his eyes widened and he blinked rapidly. For the first time a flush rose in his sallow cheeks. "Reciprocation?"

"Of course," Jack said. "You must see, Stephen, that one fellow can't just receive and not give. That would put one in a damnable awkward position. Favours and debts etcetera. You must see that such an... an act of gracious kindness, must be returned."

"I didn't realise there were rules on the subject," Stephen managed.

"This is the navy," Jack chuckled. "There are rules for everything. Of course, not all of 'em are written down, some are just, you know. Understood. Could you pour me another cup of this excellent coffee, Stephen? The pot stands by you."

Stephen poured and topped his own cup up.

"As soon as my hands are shipshape again, I'll return the favour," Jack promised, and Stephen gulped at his coffee. "And any others I may accrue until then."

"Others?" Stephen asked, wide-eyed.

"Well, it will be several days until I'm put right," Jack said complacently. "But never fear, I have a fine head for figures, I will remember to keep a tally."

Stephen was inclined to be amazed for a moment, then his eyes narrowed and he studied his friend suspiciously. "I suspect I am being made sport of," he declared.

"Never in life!" Jack exclaimed, blue eyes twinkling. Then one dropped in a deliberate, and rather scandalous wink. "Never in life, my dear."

_Fin_


End file.
